deMYTHtify!

There is a famous book by a flight attendant called Coffee, Tea, or Me. If you pre-order my new book, you get copy, e, and me: a copy of the book as soon as it comes out (on September 15), an e-version of the book immediately, and an invitation to a webinar where you can ask me anything you like about this book on my other writings. All you have to do is order the book from Amazon or your preferred retailer, and then return here to REGISTER.

Here is part of the introduction to Bust those Management Myths.

deMYTHtify: that’s what I do. Feel free to call me Henry MythBurst.

I have spent a lifetime trying to bust every management myth in sight, to take them out of sight, for the sake of insight. In the process, I have set out to reframe managing and measuring, strategy and structure, lofty leadership and lowly politics. If we can refresh our laptops, surely we can refresh our heads.

Each myth is discussed together with a corresponding deMYTH, elaborated from my research and writing over the years. We begin with the widespread myth of lofty leadership, that it is somehow better than mere management. This has been awfully destructive of leadership as well as management. Managing and leading are two sides of the same job: managers have to lead, leaders have to manage.

Next come two myths of organizing, that organizations have tops, middles, and (therefore) bottoms, and that there is one best way to organize. That way usually amounts to bureaucracy (by any other name) which, I assure you, is not the best way to organize, although it is one of four fundamental ways to do so. We need to think past hierarchical leadership, so how about engaged communityship?

Three myths of managing follow. First, is that management it is a profession that relies on the evidence of analysis, whereas I maintain that management is a practice grounded in experience. Second, is that the conventional MBA prepares students to manage everything, whereas we have more than enough evidence to conclude that this kind of education distorts the practice of managing, whereas social learning that uses managers’ experience enhances it. The third myth is that managers plan, organize, coordinate, and control (i.e, control, control, control, and control). in truth, managers have trouble controlling their own jobs, which entails a lot more than controlling.

From here we consider three myths of analyzing. The refrain that “if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it” is just plain silly. Whoever measured management, let alone measurement? Then there is the widespread myth that proper strategies are planned. Interesting strategies are learned. And third, to make decisions, we must think before we act. There are times, however, when we do better by acting in order to think, even by seeing in order to act.

Last but most comes the mother of all myths—in management and elsewhere—that our own theory is true. No theory is true—all are myths in one way or another—although some can sometimes be useful.

So, ready to pre-order now?
First, and remembering to come back here for second, ORDER ON AMAZON or your preferred retailer

Second, return here to REGISTER, so we can have your email address to invite you to the webinar, and an image of proof of purchase of the book.